Geranium Unborn
by usagirainbow
Summary: To tell the truth, despite what other people think I don't hate The World. I just dislike it, people think that I hate it because so many people are absorbed in it. I dislike it because it took away my brother.
1. Reminders

A/N: This is a prototype for a fic I've had in my head for a while, it'll also be my first fic released on this site and the first one to be released on the net since the disaster that happened around 5 years ago (when I was a crazy Riku [Kingdom Hearts] fangirl)

Sadly I need to pick up my Redemption copy and make a new file so I could make sure that I have all the technology names correct, but if anyone is willing to help, that'll be very great. The .hack wiki also says that Kaoru lives with his parents (or at least on the wiki it does) but since they're never mentioned I assumed he lived alone, sorry!

One last note, like I said up top, I'm not very sure where I'm going with this or if there's going to be any pairings, the main cast from the games won't make so many appearances except for Endrance, Silabus, Gaspard, and possibly Haseo and Sakubo. Well anyways here's the test drive!!!

* * *

Quiet knocking was heard through the room, a young man was sitting while facing a computer screen, he was wearing a plain white shirt and sweat pants, on his head was a headset on, reading "ALTIMIT MINE OS" on the sides. He paid no mind to the knocking that disturbed the silence in the room, but after a few knocks they stopped and a muffled voice sounded through the door:

"Kaoru, I'm coming in"

The door slowly opened, pushing the multiple empty bags of eaten food and empty can of drinks littered on the floor to the side. A young girl looking no more than 15 walked in, she was also dressed plainly, but her shirt had several black stripes and she was wearing a cream colored skirt.

"Nii-san, I brought the thing you asked for" she said quietly while her brother simply turned to the side and brought out his arm, waiting for the item he requested. The girl made her way through the messy room, not caring about the bags that she stepped on but moving the cans so she wouldn't trip and took out a box labeled "THE WORLD R:2" in bold, gold letters and placed it in his hand. Instantly the boy turned back again and opened the box quickly, ignoring the booklets that fell out and bounced off the table to join the litter on the floor and when a case came out he caught it carefully and removed the cd, inserting it into the drive.

The girl just watched silently and stepped quietly back to the door in order to leave while saying "I hope you won't mind, but I bought two copies". After waiting for a reply she knew wouldn't come she continued "Dinner will be ready around 7 and I'm going to clean afterwards. Also, mother wants you to go to school at least once next week, she's starting to get phone calls again" This time all she received was a nod before she closed the door and made her was to her room on the other side of the hallway.

* * *

People have always thought that I hated The World, to tell the truth I don't, I just dislike it. People think I hate it because it's so popular that it absorbed so many people into that alternate world in which so many events can unfold. I dislike it because my brother is one of those people. I still remember when we would walk together to school, he would often give me piggy backs and i would sometimes pull on his hair if his speed wasn't fitting to my needs, his hair was actually a lot neater back then. After school we would go to the park and he would push me on the swings while hearing me talk about all the events that happened, and then he would join me and talk about how he had to avoid all the girls in his class, even some of the upperclassmen. He was always popular with the females, but their personalities never could match his. I don't think he knew this, but those days were my favorite.

Then, _it_ came out.

The World, the MMORPG that everyone wanted to play, to try to live out a new adventure, maybe to ascend the ranks and attempt to join the Crimson Knights, maybe even the Azure Knights or they wanted to attain all the great treasures that laid in treasure chests at the end of a dungeon. Some just wanted to talk to millions of people that had already joined and make new connections. At first me and my brother paid no mind, we would ignore the ads on the walls of buildings and the chatter of out classmates, then one of my brother's fangirls gave a copy to him as a invitation to a date. When we came home, our mother saw the package and told him it would be rude to object her after she wasted her money on it, so my brother went to his room and inserted the disk into the computer.

It was shortly after that when he started leaving me. At first it wasn't really noticeable, instead of spending a bit of time at the park like we used to we would talk on the way home. I still talked about the same things, classmates' endless chatter, a new quiz coming up, or occasionally someone with enough bravery to declare that they didn't get the point of The World. But the things he talked about changed. Instead of school he would talk about the dungeons he would go to with his only friend in the game, trying to find this kind of item that apparently was worthless but it made his friend happy so he would go along.

I don't remember much then, but I remember a few times mother would ask me to go tell him that dinner was ready, or to see if he had done his homework. His grades in school were slowly decreasing, and mother would worry, dad would still be too busy at work to care so much. And when i would go into his room he was always facing the screen, his fingers on the control while he would speak to his friend, I think her name was Mia. Occasionally I would get to peek at the screen and I would see a young boy dressed in robes with a staff and this taller creature that looked like a mix of a bunny and a cat, she was purple too, but then brother would notice me and ask what I needed. It went on like this for several months and then something happened that completely tore us apart.

Pluto Again happened

I don't know what exactly happened, but it resulted in the loss of Mia in The World. And me in my brother's world.

Shortly after that a accident happened in the CCorp building that resulted in The World to shut down, but now R:2 is out.

And I won't let them take him again.

* * *

A/N:Wow, the 2nd half (the recap of the series) sounds really angsty and whinny to me, but in a way I can sort of see where she's coming from. Well I hope that anyone who read this enjoyed it but i do have to remind people that this is only the test before I can see if I really can go anywhere with this!!!


	2. Beginnings

Ok so here I am trying to write the 2nd chapter…I hope I never complain about how slow people update ever again!!! Seriously I didn't think it was this hard, but at least some kind of luck is in my side today. I only got 2 hours of sleep before my mind finally convinced me to type more. It seems I'm a lot more active at night xD also after reading the first chapter I also realized how hard it was to have the main character's name hidden (or at least for me it was) so I edited this a few times trying to pick out a name and finding a good way to still include it, despite most of the story events happening in The World.

I also forgot to put a disclaimer up last chapter, is it ok if I do it here?

Anything related to .hack belongs to Bandai, Namco, and Tokyopop (I wasn't sure which one to put so I just put them all xD), Ciao Ciao belongs to Tokidoki which belongs to Simone Legno.

* * *

"Yes mother, I told him already. I can try to make sure he listens, but he's 20 already. Why try to force him? Isn't high school enough, you know how much time he dedicates to that game" the girl said, clearly arguing with her mother on the phone.

"But Mariko, it's important for him to go out sometime and learn more so he can get a better future, he spends too much time in his room and on that computer!" her mother squabbled on and on. She never did realize how lost the cause her son is.

"Yes, but forcing him isn't going to do any better. And he does get out a few times a week…he just takes his computer with him. Now I'm afraid I have to go now, if I stay any longer I might not have enough time to do all the chores" Mariko responded.

"ok fine, you win this time" her mother sighed then continued "Sometimes I worry about you too, your grades are fine and you don't skip school at all, but I worry you work too hard, maybe I shouldn't have let you live with your brother" she said, motherly concern appearing in her voice

"But someone needs to be there for him, if you couldn't do it then it's up to me. We all know no one else has the patience to work with him, now seriously I have to leave you know" Mariko continued, a small smile gracing her lips.

"Ok then Mariko, but please keep taking care of yourself and Kaoru, I hope I get to visit you two sometimes, after all I do miss my little babies."

"Ok mom, well goodbye, I hope I get to talk to you soon"

"Same here, goodbye Mariko and tell Kaoru I said hello"

"Ok mom, bye" She said and hung up. After doing so she resumed walking down the hallway until reaching a room labeled "Mariko". She walked into her room and sat down at her desk. Her room was kind of plain, really. A few pieces of paper were on her bed, no doubt unfinished homework. A few DVDs lined the wall above a dresser, a clock and a vinyl figure of a skeleton in pink clothing labeled "Ciao Ciao" prevented them from falling. She stared down at her own copy of 'The World R: 2' after turning on the computer.

"…..now that I think about this…I have no idea how to work this" The young girl said while face palming. She never had been real good at computers and games, before, when Kaoru met Mia, she would ask him for help whenever she had problems involving technology; which, was quite often. She also never did play that much on the computer, the most her poor, unused desktop was used for was to search how to cook a certain recipe for vegetarians (after Pluto again Kaoru refused to touch meat, something that Reina couldn't understand why. She could understand not being able to look at it shortly after their cat (who her brother also named Mia) passed away after an accident, but after a few months she was able to eat it without getting sick afterwards.

"I think the safest bet is to read the manual…please let it be like the old games with the same instructions no matter what number it was" she said to herself and opened the box carefully and rummaged through and taking out a booklet. After rereading it a few times Mariko was pretty sure she understood every little detail, if not she can hope that screaming in terror will reach her brother and he can save her from the horror that are her technology skills…_hopefully_.

After finally being able to start installation she decided it was best to start doing other things seeing as it would take a while and she didn't dare imagine what would happen if she accidentally did something while it was in progress (she learned after erasing quite a large amount on files in her brother's old video games). Despite being horrible with technology schoolwork was ok in her eyes, she wasn't a top grade student, but she wasn't failing anything. She remembered hearing her mother's stories about how she would slack off in order to do fun things and she ended up being rushed nearly every end of the school year. Luckily she wasn't given much to do, it was mostly math work, so she was able to finish quickly and that's when she saw that the installation was finally done.

After filling in the required fields she was having troubles deciding on a name and class. To tell the truth she didn't think much when she decided to buy her copy and even while seeing the promotion videos in pictures she didn't think about actually getting it.

_Umm...There's too many too choose, maybe I should ask someone for advice? I know I definitely don't want to be a Lord Partizan or a Steam Gunner…wait with Adept Rouges you don't have to have 3 classes as long as they don't pass 4 points, right? Well Shadow Warlocks can do both offensive and recovery magic but so can Macabre Dancers…screw this!!!! Shadow Warlock is cuter anyways!!!! Well there goes 3 of my points so I can afford one more class…the only ones left are Blade Brandier, Edge Punisher, and Twin Blades. If I want power I should go with Edge Punisher, but I want to make up for Shadow's slow speed so the best would be Twin Blade!!!! Mwahaha I have finally decided!!!_

As soon as she finished these thoughts she looked over at her clock and noticed the time "WHAT?! It's 5:20 already!!! I better start making dinner NOW!!" she yelled in surprise and ran out the door, her computer screen still waiting for the owner's input on the Character's design.

* * *

I honestly thought I would never get this done, I started writing it the day…well more like a few hours after, but I didn't finish until right now, the plot bunnies came really quickly to me at the beginning but they slowed down once she was by herself and now school started so I wanted to get this done before I got any bad homework since I decided not to slack off this semester. Actually I managed to actually draw something decent which is quite funny because I really suck at drawing anything past the neck so this might manage to be a possible for her design. So now I'll be going to sleep now and hopefully I'll be able to update soon.

I think that starting the 3rd chapter the setting will take within The World for my own safety. While I was writing this I reminded myself of how bored I was of reading 'the character did this, then that, then this again' so once in a while i'll do a chapter in the outside but from now on i'll make most of them in the game.


End file.
